To Say a Sorry Sight
by selanc
Summary: She always said she'd never carry a gun, let alone fire one.


**Title:** To Say a Sorry Sight  
**Author:** Shannon  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warning/Spoilers:** Set after 3.07 Common Ground. Spoilers up to there.  
**Summary:** She always said she'd never carry a gun, let alone fire one.  
**A/N:** For **saeva** in the _Elizabeth Weir Ficathon_.

Many thanks to **Rinne** for beta-ing and **Starrylizard** for reading over and telling me it doesn't completely suck.

**To Say a Sorry Sight**

The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence. -- _Bruce Springsteen_

* * *

It takes two hours, fourteen minutes and twenty-one seconds for the screaming to stop. The little girl in her arms had stopped screaming – had stopped _breathing_ – long ago, but it is only now that the last voice in the village has quieted. 

No, not quite true. There are still whimpers and sobs, and the hisses of Wraith; there are gasping breaths that break off into nothing as the last of life is sucked dry.

There have been times when Elizabeth has wished for earplugs – times when Rodney McKay just won't shut up or John Sheppard's laugh grates just a little too much – but none so much as now. The screaming was bad, but the begging is worse.

Major Lorne pulls the little girl from her arms and lays her on the ground, hand trailing over her hair as he sighs. He looks back at Elizabeth.

"We have to go now, ma'am," he whispers. "The Wraith are at the other end of the village; this is our chance."

Her eyes swap their focus from the little girl to him. She pauses then nods, and quickly slips out the door behind him.

* * *

_It was supposed to be a simple negotiation – it's always supposed to be simple. A peaceful people with years since their last culling, they were willing to trade food for medicine. A clean, easy deal and a chance for her to have a few days to relax._

_But then the Wraith came, the way they_ always _come. The way they've come since those early days, when her people first stepped through the Stargate to explore and learn and make peace and friends - not to fight a war._

_Sometimes Elizabeth wonders just how many mirrors her expedition has broken._

* * *

Somewhere between the village and the crops (between the fire and the ash), Lorne hands her a gun. They are crouched beneath a town vehicle – a wagon, she'd call it, if they had been on Earth, but this is not Earth and it is not a wagon – hiding as another Dart shoots overhead. 

She stares at the weapon for a few moments, before laying it on the ground between them.

He glances at her, frowning, before quickly returning his gaze to their surroundings. "Dr Weir?"

"I won't carry a gun, Major."

"Ma'am…"

"No, Major."

Another Dart flies overhead, interrupting them as it shrieks towards the village. She watches it and frowns. "We have to help them."

"Dr Weir… Elizabeth. We can't help them - not until we get help ourselves. I need back-up; you need to be back on Atlantis."

She notices blood on his forehead, the tightness around his mouth and the way he sinks deeper and stronger into a hunch. "Nothing from Rodriguez or Patterson?"

Slight shake of the head. "We have to move, ma'am."

She nods, but doesn't pick up the sidearm. He slides it back into his holster.

* * *

_She had known, always thought she'd known. She had her beliefs and she knew them and she had stuck to them before._

_But somehow it's different when it's your people out there. When you are the one sending them to fight and watching them come back slung over shoulders with no pulse, it changes. And then_ they're_ on your doorstep, about to attack your home, and you think maybe maybe maybe this would be the smarter thing to do._

_"Ma'am?" the Marine asks (one of Everett's, she realises later, because her own had given up long ago)._

_But this is not her and this is not what she does. She fights with her words, not weapons. She doesn't carry a gun._

Maybe, _a little voice says, _this is the new you.

_She shakes her head and still refuses._

* * *

They're a bit under a mile from the gate, hiking quietly through the forest, when Lorne suddenly freezes and they drop quickly to the ground. She creeps up beside him and he points straight ahead. 

She gazes through the darkness, stopping when she sees what he's indicating. There's a pale body lying about a hundred feet ahead of them, half-shielded by brush.

"Stay here," Lorne murmurs, and quickly dashes ahead. He looks cautiously around as he gets closer to the body, then waves her over.

She kneels besides the body, presses her fingers to the neck. He's young, around twenty. No pulse. She quickly checks him over, looking for any obvious external injuries, something to show how he died.

"He's still warm," she mutters as she turns him onto his stomach. She gasps quietly, so quietly, and Lorne glances down.

"Lion and tigers and bears, oh my," he says, trying to smile and failing miserably.

She runs her fingers over the slashes – two sets of four, deep and ragged in the boy's back – and nods. "A Wraith didn't do this."

"Just what we need." He sighs and reaches down to his thigh. Elizabeth watches as he removes his sidearm and holds it out to her.

She shakes her head. "Maj- Evan, no."

He ducks down quickly and stares at her, the gun still held out between them. "Ma'am, I get it. I do. You're a diplomat and diplomats don't carry weapons because how can you talk people into not fighting when it looks like you're ready to yourself? I understand that."

She stares at him, lips tightly pressed together, as he continues.

"But this is not a diplomatic situation. The Wraith aren't going to discuss anything; we _know_ that. They're going to screw us over and eat us, and whatever did that to the boy? Probably not going to talk much either."

He grabs her hand and holds it between his, the gun pressed firmly against her palm.

"There's only the two of us here and Atlantis needs you alive, Elizabeth. And I can't protect you if I have to make us a way through the Wraith that are undoubtedly at the gate. We need you alive."

She gazes at him, frowning, before suddenly closing her fingers over the butt of the gun. "I can't promise I'll fire it."

"It's not that difficult, ma'am, you just-"

"That's not what I meant."

He glances at her face then nods. "Yes, ma'am."

They start back towards the Stargate.

* * *

_She hadn't realised how much she'd changed, at first. There had been hints of it, here and there: looks Simon had given her back on Earth; a couple of moments when she found herself gazing over the gateroom, fingers tightly clamped around the railing, not sure what she had just been thinking and not wanting to know._

_And then there was Kavanagh and the Goa'uld in Caldwell, and she tried to make the best decision of a bad lot, but it just got worse and worse._

_Downward spiral, always downward. All it needed was time._

* * *

A half-hour later and they're at the edge of the forest, gazing over the clearing where the Stargate stands. The gate is active and there's a lone Dart hovering around it. 

"So," Lorne starts, pulling out his binoculars, "do you think it's Atlantis or the Wraith who are in charge of this wormhole?"

She raises an eyebrow and he grins. "Yeah. That's what I thought."

She frowns as he surveys the area. "I wish we knew how long it's been active for," she says.

"Yeah," Lorne sighs, "me too. I guess we'll just have to wait a while."

He parks himself behind a tree a few feet back from the end of the treeline. Elizabeth takes another glance at the Stargate then joins him, placing the gun on the ground beside her.

They sit silently for a few minutes, she keeping watch to the right, he to the left and in front. Lorne glances at the gun, then her, and opens his mouth to speak.

The gate shuts down.

They both leap to their feet and look out to the gate. Lorne raises the binoculars quickly and focuses on the DHD. The Stargate starts dialling.

"Can you see the address?" Elizabeth asks, fingers lightly tapping the gun.

"A moment… Yes! Got them." Lorne grins at her then glances at his watch.

Elizabeth smiles wryly. "And now you have thirty-eight minutes to memorise them while we wait."

* * *

_Elizabeth's uncle was an Army man. She would watch sometimes when they visited - oddly interested, strangely repelled - as he put together and took apart all his different weapons. He'd show the different parts to her, what went where, what that part did, before her parents would hurry her away and his face would fall._

_There's a reason Phoebus so easily picked up a P90 when she attacked Atlantis, why there wasn't more of an adjustment. Elizabeth knows the theory behind the weapons and, even though she barely remembers the information, it was still there in her brain to be picked through – like the codes and the people and everything else about Atlantis._

_It took her a while to get over the fact that, even without a gun in her hand, she was still one of the worst weapons Atlantis could face._

* * *

They separate five minutes before the wormhole is supposed to collapse. Lorne double-checks she knows how to work the gun, before he heads off to get behind the Dart. 

His job is to distract the Wraith, preferably by knocking them out of the sky. Hers is to dial the gate.

It's a stupid - terrible desperate - plan, but it's the only one they have. Another wait for the wormhole to shut – or for Atlantis to rescue them – will leave no chance of any of the villagers being saved. At the moment, their chances are about as skinny as a supermodel, but they still have _something_.

She moves low across the ground and hunches behind a bush closer to the DHD. The Dart remains still and she gives herself a few moments to breathe. Then she waits.

The Stargate shuts down and she hears Lorne's gunfire. Elizabeth braces herself and _runs_.

She's at the DHD in seconds and starts punching in the address. She avoids looking towards the Dart, but a loud whine and crash and sudden heat from that way cause her to grin.

She hits the seventh symbol, then the middle and the Stargate erupts. She looks up for Lorne and he's shouting at her to run to the gate. She types her code into her GDO, and heads towards the gate.

Suddenly, there's a huge roar and then silence. She looks up to see Lorne on the ground, a dark blur on top of him. They're struggling.

She pulls out the gun. Her arms are straight, her grip is sure, her balance perfectly even. She clicks off the safety, takes a deep breath and steels herself.

She doesn't fire.

Lorne yanks a knife out from his boot and thrusts it up into the creature. He fights to reach for his P90, tossed out of his grasp when he was tackled. He grabs it, rolls over, and fires at the animal. It stops moving.

Elizabeth sprints over and hoists him to his feet. Lorne groans, but grins at her. "It's okay. Only a flesh wound."

She doesn't believe him.

A piercing whine in the distance causes them both to look up and hurry to the gate, Lorne limping and leaning on her. They step through.

* * *

_After Michael and the Wraith and the utter screw-up that was, she knows things have to change. She knows, deep down, she's still acting like this is just an exploration and it shows in the way that she's always reacting – just reacting. She makes the best of a bad situation, but she's always behind and it just gets worse._

_Things have to change. And after she has to fight those damn nanites, and after John is nearly lost to Kolya (again), it finally starts to sink in._

* * *

She doesn't see Lorne for three weeks. At least, not alone. During the briefings, his team are there, and the debriefings are held in the presence of John. There's never really any other reason to see him. 

She knows John is starting to get suspicious – their reports were short, concise, to-the-point; almost overly so. He hasn't said anything yet – he's good that way, sometimes – but it's bound to happen soon.

She finds herself wandering the halls late one night. Atlantis is quiet, and there's no one around – she has deliberately avoided the patrols. She's close enough to the outside that she can hear the ocean, but it is only a soft murmur.

She walks for a while, heading to no particular place.

Well, that's what she thinks. But when she looks up and realises she's just outside the shooting range, she knows she was deluding herself, just a little.

She waves her hand over the door panel and steps through as they open. The range is empty, not a soul in sight, and she stands at the end, gazing down to the targets.

She remains there, focused, till he slips into the room and stops beside her. She sighs and faces him. She's made her decision.

"I need you to teach me."

Lorne gazes at her, frowning. "Do you really want to?"

"No," she says, "but I have to. That can't happen again."

He stares at her for a few more moments, then nods and leads her to the armoury.

Then he teaches her. And standing there, his body behind her, guiding her arms and her aim, she knows that things will be different now. She isn't sure what to make of that.

Evan's breath is warm against her cheek. "Okay, Elizabeth," she feels him murmur, "now."

She closes her eyes, and fires.


End file.
